The Image is the Reality – and Reality is nothing but an Image

Eva-Maria Mehrgardt

A New Theory on the Image

The Role of Art

What strikes me in almost all current theories on the role of art is that they, for one thing, emphasise the urge for continuous renewal, rejuvenation and different artistic expressions, while at the same time they manifest fear, lest those characteristic developments will terminate the very art. However, in both my own work and that of other artists I experience an almost inversely proportional development. Means the termination of an purely aesthetic position on the one hand and searching a wider common ground on the other. The variety of images we are experiencing every day diminishes their message to zero, we are able to produce thousands of meanings and images everyday. There is no end to this creative process and so it is becoming more and more irrelevant. On the other hand, as a result of the unprecedented multiplicity of material available to the expressive arts, as well as the proceeding open access to the (thought) systems of foreign cultures, I have been witnessing the continuous unfolding of possibilities for exchange and thus of meeting and dealing with completely new points of view. This will probably change the role of the arts but surely not terminate them.

Behind that profusion of impressions simultaneously a growing conformity of patterns is to be recognized; and as an attempt to safeguard the integrity of the arts a drive for discovering a common background of all the possible images is displayed. It is the artist, led by experience, who searches her way through this labyrinth. The effect of working with that variety of impressions that affect our perceptions and thus show impact on the human mind, is that of growing artists into experts, capable of handling any new facets of life. Now that the boundaries between disciplines become faint, the skill of the artist within these newly arisen intermediate areas is for certain becoming essential. Her work is carried out in between theory and practise and as such makes up a foundation of each renewal within this everchanging dialogue.

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I am not concerned with the perfection of art expressions, which one can find reflected in a museum or art gallery, but with the realisation of certain ideal contents, which could lead us to be able to create a world in which anyone on this planet would be offered somewhat equal opportunities of development. My concepts are meant to be a supplementary addition and interpretation of a part of the background of our present view of art and life. My sense is that we are still a long way from having reached a consensus rising above a national level about the role of the arts. I think that the circle of official acknowledgement of the artist only represents a tiny fragment out of her actual field of activity. Until now the limitations of the natural laws of physics, of matter, have been the field in which the results of practising this art are to be manifested.

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The artist as Intermediary

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